


The Evolution of a Battlefield

by dropout_ninja



Series: If We Could Just Be What We Wanted [3]
Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: All Kinds Of Offscreen Crimes, Alternate Universe, Anger, Gen, Grudges, Hollow Victories, Post-War, Power Dynamics, Rebuilding Societies, mentioned murders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:09:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24411103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dropout_ninja/pseuds/dropout_ninja
Summary: There was an unwanted form of spite and disgust that festered without true depth in the realm between hate and sympathy.
Series: If We Could Just Be What We Wanted [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761130
Comments: 12
Kudos: 16





	The Evolution of a Battlefield

**Author's Note:**

> Another installment in the If I Could Just Know What You Wanted universe. Spoilers for/references to that fic are included in here and it probably won't make much sense without reading that story prior to this.  
> Transformers and its characters do not belong to me. All rights go to their respective owners.  
> Light warnings for the mention of Cliffjumper's murder and Starscream being an unapologetic asshole.

Dreadwing was only one pede into this place and he already hated it. 

The flyer at his side did not seem to feel the same. So he ground his optics shut, centered himself, and pushed on. 

Vos looked as small as the rest of the planet did. It was no fault of its leader or direction- yet- but rather the empty state of the world itself. Other than the newsparks, there were still very few on Cybertron's surface. 

Starscream had wasted no time in advertising his kingdom to those newsparks. The young seekers had heard promises of glory and regality and endless flying and had gone to this place to declare loyalty. Newsparks did not tend to research past the surface of promises. They knew nothing of the mech they were swearing loyalty to. They knew nothing of the old Vos that the new was attempting to replicate. 

This place barely amounted to that memory. There was one tower. It was the first structure built after constructing crews had been requested. The rest of the city-state was still little more than rubble and construction zones. 

Still, it carried flair. There were seekers in the sky; the newsparks, enjoying the rush of air as they raced each other. The singular tower gleamed. The four streets leading up to it held an officialism Dreadwing had not expected. 

He did not like it here.

"Isn't it great?" the vehicon at his side said, quite contrary to his own thoughts. 

The older flyer looked over the mech beside him. Orange and golds and silvery blues met his stare. Polish wafted through the air. Body lights blinked red and bright. 

Yes. He would match the flair of this place well. 

Dreadwing continued to lead the other down the bronze street for that reason- and the fact that this favor to the flyer meant a favor to the medic this vehicon was friends with.

* * *

There was a throne room.

Of course there was. 

Even if the tower was unfinished and whole floors were bare and few seekers even filled it, there was a throne room. 

A single seeker lounged atop it. His plating was as gray as ever. Scraps of old Vosian ornaments hung on a frame that still carried its signature protective hunch even without Megatron overhead. 

As all cybertronians were required to do, Dreadwing had informed Vos ahead of his requested audience. It left Starscream with time to prepare his frame for full preening and show. It was pitiful to behold.

It was everything the vehicon wanted.

"Look who's here," the seeker on the throne spoke first. "Former _commander_ Dreadwing."

How petty could he be?

"Why are you here?"

Of course, he already knew. There had been an informational message sent to the fledgling Vosian government. It had been the only way to get an audience here.

But Starscream wanted to hear him debase himself through enforced humility. 

"I come to request an addition to Vos's citizenship," Dreadwing repeated what he had said in his request for entrance a cycle previously. He would not show anger. He would reveal no irritation. He could not afford to give a reason for that requested citizenship to be turned down.

"For you?" Starscream made a show of looking the other seeker up and down. "I'm not sure we have room for an idiotic antique like yourself."

He thought himself so invulnerable on that throne with his guards and political safety. 

And -damn it all- he was. 

"No," Dreadwing growled. "For a vehicon. He desires to be counted among the official seekers of Vos and live among the culture here."

In the recent past, Starscream had called many of his armada members 'seekers'. The reasoning was likely simple: most other forged seekers were long dead. He was grasping for familiarity and called the vehicons by the Vosian title to find that familiarity. 

Now came the time to discover if that slip still counted now that newsparked flyers were born from the Well. 

"A vehicon, is it?" the winglord clasped talons together. His words were said with deliberate slowness. He wanted reaction and he wanted suspense. He held both Dreadwing and the flyer left outside the audience room in his power for this moment and so he wished to prolong it. 

Dreadwing found himself glad he had asked the other to wait outside. He did not deserve to witness whatever humiliation and suspense Starscream desired to put both through in order to win a private war against the blue seeker. 

"Do you think a drone deserves to belong here?"

Here: where Starscream was a leader. He felt the standards for admission were rather low. 

That was not said aloud. Not when he needed to pull a satisfied reaction from the mech. 

"I sent his dossier and his own request for citizenship to you and your officials," Dreadwing said instead. "I came to support all that he said there; I will back up his claims and worth."

And Starscream was desperate for citizens. 

Still they played this game. 

"Fine. Who is it?" the seeker waved a servo. 

Biting down irritation at the interruption, Dreadwing answered.

"He is XL-3T09, a former member of your _Nemesis_ armada."

Chances were that he did not remember individual members of that armada. Chances were that he never had seen their individual persons. 

"That's a stupid name," Starscream sneered. 

And that was hardly important right now. Not to mention the hypocrisy of it.

"It is the designation offered by the decepticon command," Dreadwing growled. "I believe you supervised vehicon designation."

They were made to be impersonal. Phoenix had explained as much, in fewer words, and the other vehicons had explained the same idea to him. XL-3T09 was adamant about the importance of names; it was almost ironic that he had not chosen one of his own yet. _It has to fit me just right_ , he would say whenever Phoenix asked him on it. 

"Careful-" the seeker on the throne interrupted his thoughts. "It almost sounded as if you were insulting the mech you are here to ask a favor of."

How...unfortunately true it was. 

Dreadwing grit his jaws against the sickening distaste of it all and fell silent. 

"Apologies, winglord," he ground out. Oh how it hurt. How it disgusted him. How he wished to reach the other and throttle him until the coward lost this revolting cockiness. 

The interaction aboard the _Nemesis_ before his disappearance returned unbidden to Dreadwing. They had run across each other and thrown insults and anger. They had called up the past and shoved it at one another. 

_you were a fool at the start, bragging about how lord Megatron would never hurt you_

There had always been this cocky confidence. Since the first cycle he had arrived on the scene- bright paints and fluttering capes and stupid superiority. 

How much was there still?

How much had merely fermented once Megatron had proved himself oh so willing to hurt his subordinates? 

And how much had been killed by that very realization?

_I was never a fool_

_never a fool_

What he was then and now was the same: a liar. What an _honorable_ mech to have sit atop a country. 

The creeping realization that he served a mech who deserved no loyalty had almost allowed Dreadwing to sympathize with the decepticon air commander. They both had lost their blind nativity- merely at different times in their lives and the war. 

But Skyquake had ruined any chance for that sympathy. 

His twin had deserved better than what he had received in death. Even now, as he roamed another realm as an undead warrior, his living brother existed alongside his murderers and desecrator without attempting to avenge him.

It was difficult.

It was so very difficult. 

But he was not blind enough to see himself alone in that difficulty. Even now, the Prime's teammates were existing with the fact that decepticons that had killed many of their loved ones not only lived but sat atop seats of power. Just as Starscream did now. 

"Much better." Starscream smiled slowly and Dreadwing despised it hollowly.

He could have reached a point of sympathy had he not learned of Skyquake.

He could have hated fully had he not seen how drained of true pride the once-colorful mech was. 

There was spite and disgust that festered without depth in the realm between.

"Now," the arrogant seeker crossed his legs and leaned over them. "Ask me for that favor again."

* * *

There was no difference in the air quality of Vos compared to the land around the Well, yet Dreadwing still felt as though his vents' filters had been flawed there compared to here. 

There was a feeling of filth settled all over him. He could not escape it. 

It had been necessary. Playing polite, being respectful, allowing the traitor to walk all over him- it had succeeded. XL-3T09 was a registered citizen of Vos. He had been thrilled. Dreadwing was only happy that he had not been inside the throne room during his audience with the winglord. There had been insults and the dragging of his honor as his person had been caught in the crossfire between two mechs that nearly despised one another. Let him be happy with his new home. Let him be happy with the ornaments he would be allowed and the flying he would bask in and the tower he would eventually live within. It was better he live only in that than know he had been used as a weapon of leverage inside Dreadwing and Starscream's unsaid war. 

The blue mech sat and looked across the Well. It was hardly the shine and gleam of Vos. It was real, unhidden. It lived honestly with its own current poverty instead of hiding behind a pretense of former greatness. 

He was too bitter on this subject. He needed to meditate within his quarters. Let the infinite white blank out all of filth he felt crawling on his honor now.

A pair of autobots walked by his seat chatting. One glanced at him and split from the other to approach.

The autobots had killed his brother. 

He remained where he was. 

"I hear you went over to Vos today," the two-wheeler said while she sat near him. 

"Indeed."

There was no elaboration. 

"How'd you deal with Starscream there?" she spoke again.

With great difficulty. 

She laughed at his darkened silence. "Yeah. That's about as well as I'd do it too."

The autobot shifted. 

"Op...Orion said that he called in a request for bodyguards. Would you believe the nerve?" Arcee laughed again but this time he heard how mirthless it was. "He comes to us to ask for protection and loyalty? I think I'd end up slitting his throat if I had the job."

It was understandable enough. His attitude invited anger and retaliation, after all.

"I should rather despise the job as well," he said flatly. He did not truly wish to talk with an autobot. 

But then it grew too quiet. They both remained, but it was in a quickly souring setting. There was too much silence. Dreadwing looked down, feeling the uneasy sensation that something was wrong. The autobot was biting her lip tight; attempting to use that as grounding, to prevent reaction? 

How familiar.

"What is it?" he asked. 

The femme shook her head, shaking with brief, hollow laughter.

"Cliff." She leaned her head back painfully far, smiling up at the sky in a way so obviously meant so as to avoid staring at any person. "He was my second partner. He went-...he took on more than he could handle and his life signal went offline before any of us could reach him."

"This name. It's shortened?"

It stands for another?

The name that Starscream had tried to brag about in the arctic? It held the same prefix and Dreadwing did not feel coincidences were common.

"Yeah," Arcee confirmed. "Cliffjumper. He got killed by Starscream. But his signal came back online before we knew that. We followed it to a mine and I saw him fall and went after him and-"

She returned to biting her lip a moment before shaking her head and releasing it.

"It was his torso. It was just a torso, but it moved, and growled, and acted like a living animal. An _animal_."

Dark energon?

He hardly realized he had said the words aloud. 

"The first encounter we had with it," she confirmed, bringing her head back down to its normal position as she did so. 

So they had both had the corpse of one close to them desecrated by the foul substance.

Arcee's had been killed by Starscream and the dark energon defiled his body later.

Dreadwing's had been killed by the autobot's this femme belonged to and dark energon befouled his body at Starscream's doing.

There was similarity and there was difference.

"You wish to kill him?" he said as a question, however rhetorically.

Arcee grimaced.

"Absolutely. I wanted his life for Cliff's; I wanted to be the one to avenge him and, if not, I at least wanted him facing justice. Not... _this_."

How incredibly relatable. 

Going in there to play nice simply for XL-3T09's sake had taken great, unhappy effort.

"Cybertron was bigger than that, though," she continued with a shrug. "Keeping that peace is what Optimus would want."

And it supposedly was what Megatron wanted as well.

But Dreadwing no longer answered to that mech's desires. 

"That stays our blades, then," he replied grimly. 

Her grimace twisted into some sort of unholy mixture of frown and smile. 

"That-" she said "-and the fact that he's miserable in there."

The autobot's optics narrowed in the direction of land where Vos eventually lay. 

"He's got everything he wanted and it's nothing anymore." 

And the gloating he'd faced when forcing himself to go in and play diplomatically with a desecrator had been evidently hollow enough that he believed her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
